Jason Roberts is a teenager when he first sets eyes on Bandali Debs, a killer hiding in plain sight.

To most, Debs is just another dad who lives with his family in Fountain Gate — the shopping “mecca” made famous by comedy show Kath & Kim.

No one suspects he is evil incarnate.

And Roberts, who is dating his daughter, Nicole, falls under the spell of his new father figure.

Together they wear horror masks and brandish guns to rob restaurants.

Debs will even urge his terrified victims: “Tell them Lucifer was here”.

Then, in the minutes after midnight on August 16, 1998, two police officers on a stakeout to catch them are murdered.

They are shot with two guns.

As a massive manhunt begins, Roberts celebrates his 18th birthday.

It takes two years to arrest Debs and Roberts and another two for a jury to find both men guilty of killing Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller.

Roberts never stops protesting his innocence.

More than a decade later it will fall to one brave cop to seek the truth and a poorly dressed journalist to dig for the truth.

Veteran homicide detective Ron Iddles exposes flaws in Roberts’ conviction. And he also finds he has an alibi.

It will turn the police “brotherhood” against him.

But the key question remains, was there one gunman or two?

In a pub in 2017, an envelope is pushed across a bar room table, changing everything.

Inside lies a document that Herald Sun journalist Anthony Dowsley has been hunting for years.

And it will blow the case wide open.

It will prove corruption poisoned Roberts’ trial to its root, marking him as the “second gunman”.

Against all odds, it will lead to Roberts walking free after 22 years in jail.

In podcast The Devil’s Apprentice, Dowsley looks deep into the police investigation, two trials, and a heinous crime leavng behind shattered lives.

And, for the first time, Jason Roberts tells his story.

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To listen to the podcast or read our groundbreaking investigation subscribe at heraldsun.com.au or through the app.